Month: April 2015

Dylan Donaldson places marijuana purchased from the Kindman grow house, in a safe in the Karing Kind marijuana dispensary which he owns in Boulder, Colo., Jan. 23, 2015. (Benjamin Rasmussen/The New York Times)

BY SUDHIN THANAWALA

SAN FRANCISCO – Lawyers and pot dealers have long intersected in criminal court, but as marijuana goes mainstream, attorneys have been working to keep sellers and growers legit.

Marijuana divisions are popping up at law firms to advise pot shops on where they can locate, what their websites can say and how to vet new clients.

“It’s definitely something that established firms are dipping a toe into, though they are being very cautious, and rightly so,” said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who teaches a class about representing the marijuana industry.

Kamin said the firms see marijuana as a lucrative new industry, but still worry about the potential ethical and legal pitfalls – and how it will affect their reputations.

Marijuana has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. California and more than 20 other states have legalized the drug for medical use, and the pot business has gotten a boost from more recent approvals of recreational use in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Washington, D.C. Pot advocates hope growth continues, as they push for voters to approve recreational pot in California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts next year.

The drug remains illegal under federal law, however, and the American Bar Association’s rules of professional conduct prohibit lawyers from assisting in criminal conduct.

With this in mind, attorneys say they focus on providing advice about what state marijuana laws do and don’t allow, and decline to answer questions about how clients can bend the rules.

“We’re not your consigliere. We’re not an organized crime family,” said Khurshid Khoja, a legalization advocate and founder of San Francisco-based Greenbridge Corporate Counsel. “We’re legitimate business people.”

Khoja’s firm is among a new crop dedicated solely to marijuana clients, including packaging companies and investors.

But for law firms with other practice areas, there is also concern about how non-pot clients will view their marijuana work.

At the Seattle, Washington-based law firm of Harris Moure, the marijuana practice group has a completely separate brand – Canna Law Group – with its own website.

“It was a calculated defense mechanism against the potential legal and reputational concerns,” said Hilary Bricken, who heads up the group and boasts a unique accolade on her website – DOPE Magazine’s attorney of the year.

Bricken started the practice group in 2010 and now brings in roughly $1 million of revenue to the firm each year, she said.

Marijuana law, in many ways, is no different from other legal practices, attorneys say. It involves contracts, real estate transactions, trademarks and regulatory compliance. What is unique, though, is the constant prospect of running afoul of the law.

“Everybody’s question can be summarized like this: How can I engage in this type of activity without going to prison,” said Aaron Lachant, an attorney at the Los Angeles-based law firm of Nelson Hardiman.

The legal issues that come up also often have little or no precedent, said Dan Garfield, an attorney at Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher in Denver, Colorado.

Garfield, whose firm got into the marijuana field several years ago, was recently working on an appeal of a federal court’s ruling that a couple did not qualify for bankruptcy protection because their assets largely stemmed from marijuana enterprises.

“Lawyers don’t like to say, ‘I don’t know,'” Garfield said, but for marijuana clients, he’s says it far more often than for others.

For marijuana entrepreneurs, legal guidance can bring peace of mind.

Shy Sadis, 42, who has medical and recreational marijuana stores throughout Washington state, said Bricken has helped him trademark “The Joint,” one of his store names, locate properties that would comply with the state’s recreational marijuana rules and create forms that new patients must fill out.

“I haven’t been shut down. I’m not in tax trouble,” he said. “She’s shown me the right way to run these businesses, so I don’t get into trouble.”

Former U.S. Marine Sgt. Ryan Begin smokes medical marijuana at his home in Belfast, Maine. Begin had his right elbow blown off by a roadside bomb in 2004 and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch as U.S. Attorney General, five months after her nomination by President Barack Obama. Meanwhile, the Justice Department said Tuesday that Michele Leonhart will step down from her role as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration next month.

Leonhart, who is leaving amid a scandal over DEA agents engaging in sex parties with prostitutes supplied by drug cartels, is known to be a steadfast opponent of marijuana legalization who once refused to say whether or not she believed marijuana to be safer than crack cocaine or heroin. While Leonhart’s successor is unknown, her departure on its own is likely to be cheered by the emerging cannabis industry and proponents for the drug’s widespread legalization.

Meanwhile, Lynch, who will succeed Eric Holder as head of the Justice Department and the nation’s top law enforcement officer, is known to be politically liberal. But she is not expected to be as open-minded as Holder when it comes to marijuana legalization.

Holder has mostly stayed out-of-the-way of the 23 states that have legalized medical marijuana (four states and D.C. legalized recreational pot). He had also expressed a willingness to consider removing marijuana from the list of Schedule 1 drugs, the designation for those that are considered the most dangerous.

In an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on April 14, Christie, the governor of New Jersey and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said he would crack down on marijuana sales and use in Washington and Colorado, which in 2012 were the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. “Marijuana is a gateway drug,” Christie said. “We have an enormous addiction problem in this country.”

The “gateway hypothesis” or theory refers to the idea that one substance — marijuana, in this case — leads users to subsequently use and/or abuse other drugs. If Christie’s point is simply that the use of marijuana tends to precede the use of other drugs, then he is correct — but that’s not the whole story.

Though studies of large populations of people have indeed found that those who smoke marijuana are more likely to use other drugs, these studies show a correlation without showing causation — a commonly misunderstood phenomenon in science. In short, just because marijuana smokers might be more likely to later use, say, cocaine, does not imply that using marijuana causes one to use cocaine.

A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, laid out this issue clearly (see pages 100-101): “In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation into the use of other illicit drugs, it is indeed a gateway drug. However, it does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association.”

We spoke with several experts and reviewed the available scientific literature on gateway theory. Christie’s definitive statement is unsupported by evidence — there is some evidence in favor of a gateway effect.

But the scientific community shares no consensus on the issue and there is little evidence on the underlying cause of that effect.

In this Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014, photo, Cannabis City clerk Jessica Mann scans a customer’s ID as she rings up a purchase of marijuana at the shop in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Nearly two decades after voters passed a medical marijuana law that often left the police, prosecutors and even patients confused about what was allowed, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill on Friday that attempts to clean up that largely unregulated system and to bring it in line with Washington’s new recreational marijuana market.

Among the law’s many provisions, it creates a voluntary registry of patients and, beginning next year, eliminates what have become in some cases large, legally dubious “collective gardens” providing cannabis to thousands of people. Instead, those patients will be able to buy medical-grade products at legal recreational marijuana stores that obtain an endorsement to sell medical marijuana, or they will be able to participate in cooperatives of up to four patients.

And those big medical marijuana gardens will be given a path to legitimacy: The state will grant priority in licensing to those who have been good proprietors.

New Leaf Enterprises in Seattle. Washington’s medical marijuana growers have sought legislative validation for their businesses. (Photo by David Ryder for The New York Times)

The proliferation of medical dispensaries has long been a concern for the police and other officials who denounce them as a cover for black-market sales. Washington in 1998 became one of the first states to approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes, but the initiative passed by voters did not allow commercial sales.

Medical marijuana growers repeatedly sought legislation that would validate their businesses, coming closest in 2011, when the Legislature approved a bill to create a licensing framework for medical dispensaries. But Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed much of the measure.

This time, with the state seeking to support its nascent recreational marijuana industry after the passage of Initiative 502 in 2012, there was a financial impetus to pull the medical users into the recreational system.

Under the new law, patients who join the voluntary registry will be allowed to possess three ounces dry, 48 ounces of marijuana-infused solids, 216 ounces liquid and 21 grams of concentrates.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Supporters of marijuana legalization in Ohio say they are about halfway to their goal of collecting the more than 305,000 signatures needed to get a proposal on the ballot in November of this year, according to the Associated Press and the Northeast Ohio Media Group.

ResponsibleOhio, the group working toward the 2015 ballot, says it has collected more than 160,000 signatures on petitions to put the issue before voters, the Northeast Ohio Media Group is reporting.

ResponsibleOhio’s amendment would allow 10 growing sites promised to campaign investors. Entrepreneurs would be able to apply for licenses to manufacture marijuana products and sell weed at retail stores and nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries.

Recreational marijuana would be taxed at 15 percent at the wholesale and manufacturing levels and 5 percent at retail locations. Most tax revenue would go to local governments to pay for roads, police and other public services while 15 percent would go toward marijuana research, addiction services and enforcement.

A one-gram packet of a variety of marijuana named “Space Needle” made by Sea of Green Farms in Seattle. Each packet is labeled with the percentage of THC, a lot number, and warning messages. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

When Washington state legalized recreational marijuana use last July, Seattle’s tourism industry saw a new opportunity, reports Fast Company.

Could Seattle become a hub for pot tourism, with eager visitors piling into local hotels for an opportunity to try some of that famous Pacific Northwest weed? The answer, in a word: yes. But not without a struggle.

Before Seattle could become another Amsterdam, local businesspeople and tourism agencies must deal with some unexpected issues.

The city’s tourism agency, Visit Seattle, is still trying to figure out what is doable and what is not, according to vice president of communications David Blandford.

“We’re trying to decipher what’s possible for tourists,” Blandford says. “There’s no national market research. In addition, just because it’s legal here, it doesn’t mean you can just walk down the street and smoke. It’s for private consumption. The vast majorities of venues have no smoking policies of any kind, so it’s an interesting challenge.”

Right off the bat, Visit Seattle said that one of the most likely prospects for marijuana tourism—pot-smoking cruises on the Puget Sound—would be impossible because they fall under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard rather than Washington state. Advertising of any sort also becomes an issue because of conflicting federal and state regulations on marijuana use. And, Blandford adds, many established companies simply don’t want to risk negative PR by offering services geared towards pot tourists.

State Government Committee Chairman Mike Folmer, a co-sponsor of the bill, said he believes the Legislature could send Wolf a measure before summer recess, CBS-3 reports.

The amendment eliminates the production of edible cannabis products.

“Patients would be allowed to mix prescribed medical cannabis into their foods, such as herbal teas and mashed potatoes,” Folmer said.

The bill already prohibits smoking or using a vaporizer, but was amended Tuesday to permit using a nebulizer. The bill defines a nebulizer as: “A drug delivery device that uses oxygen, compressed air or ultrasonic power to break up medical solutions, including oil-bases (sic) cannabis, into small aerosol droplets that are directly inhaled from the mouthpiece of the device.”

The panel adopted an amendment to Senate Bill 3 prior to the vote that included adding HIV/AIDS and glaucoma to the list of conditions for which patients could be eligible to use medical cannabis, Folmer stated. The other conditions include cancer, epilepsy and seizures, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, cachexia/wasting syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury and post-concussion syndrome, multiple scleroris, spinocerebellara ataxia, post-traumatic stress disorder and severe fibomyalgia.

Folmer stated he wants to see further amendments, including to expand the list of qualifying conditions “especially to include diabetes, neuralgia and possibly pain management.

“I would also like to see vaporization included as I do not believe nebulization is the best delivery method for some diseases – vaporization is much better,” he continued.

Low-level cannabis possession would go from a crime with fines of up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail to be more like a traffic ticket: no court time and a fine of up to $125. The measure would apply to people caught with 15 grams or less, the equivalent of about 25 cigarette-size joints.

Sponsoring Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, said the measure wouldn’t override laws in cities like Chicago that already have fines in place for marijuana possession but is aimed at creating a uniform penalty throughout the state and eliminating the option for police to arrest people carrying small amounts of pot.

The House bill comes days after Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced her office would stop prosecuting low-level marijuana possession cases for people with fewer than three arrests or citations. It also follows a measure enacted by Chicago in 2012 that allowed police to issue tickets of $250 to $500 for someone caught with 15 grams or less of marijuana.

Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, S.C., where a drone was launched from a wooded area and became tangled in power lines outside the prison. (Photo by Andy McMillan for The New York Times)

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. — During the graveyard shift at 1:44 a.m., security cameras at the prison here picked up the blinking lights of an unidentified flying object approaching the facility’s fence.

A corrections officer was dispatched to investigate, but by the time she got there, all she could see was a man running away into the dense forest that surrounds the prison.

It was not until dawn that officers found a package that included a cellphone, tobacco and marijuana tangled in the power lines outside the prison and a small drone that had crashed in the bushes nearby. In the woods, investigators located a makeshift campground, the remote control device used to fly the drone, a bottle of grape-flavored Gatorade and drugs.

“It was a delivery system,” said Bryan P. Stirling, the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, explaining how the drone’s operators had planned to send the contraband into the prison, the Lee Correctional Institution. “They were sending in smaller amounts in repeated trips. They would put it on there, they would deliver it, someone inside would get it somehow, and they would send it back out and send more in.”

It is the high-tech version of smuggling a file into a prison in a birthday cake, and it underscores the headache that drones are now creating for law enforcement and national security officials, who acknowledge that they have few, if any, ways of stopping them.

Drones flying over prison walls may not be the chief concern of corrections officials. But they say that some would-be smugglers are experimenting with the technique as an alternative to established methods like paying off officers, hiding contraband in incoming laundry and throwing packages disguised as rocks over fences into recreational yards.

The authorities have detected at least three similar attempts at corrections facilities in the United States in the past two years. In the same period, there were also at least four reported attempts abroad, in Ireland, Britain, Australia and Canada.

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In January, guards found a drone with blue and red flashing lights on the ground inside a recreational yard at a prison in Bennettsville, S.C., according to investigative reports. On that drone were 55 grams of synthetic marijuana and a cellphone charger, the reports said.

Law enforcement officials say they have no way of knowing how many attempts have been successful, but the warden of the Lee Correctional Institute, Cecilia Reynolds, said that in recent weeks her officers found 17 phones in one inmate’s cell. She said she suspected that the phones continue to come in on drones.

“We’ve got to do something about this — these cellphones are killing us,” she said.

Smartphones are so desirable to inmates because unlike pay phones at prisons, they are not recorded or monitored. The phones also allow them to watch pornography and communicate surreptitiously with fellow prisoners.

The phones are essential for coordinating with smugglers using drones, because the prisoners need to know where to find the deliveries in the yard. The prisoners can then use the phones to quickly pay their suppliers.

The problems that cellphones create were exposed in February during a nine-hour riot at the prison here in Bishopville. Inmates took control of a part of their dormitory after they stabbed two officers and assaulted three others. Before the authorities could regain control of the facility, the inmates called a local television station from their cellphones, claiming they were holding other inmates hostage. The inmates then sent the television station photos of the hostages and the destruction they had done to the dorm.

Ever since a hobbyist drone crashed on the South Lawn of the White House in January, there has been an increased push by law enforcement agencies, companies and privacy watchdogs to come up with ways to restrict the flight of drones. That task has been particularly difficult because the laws and regulations that govern drones are outdated and confusing.

“It’s a new area and we don’t know the full extent of drones’ capabilities — both good and bad — and because of that we don’t know what the gaps are in the laws and what we need to do to clarify them,” said Lisa Ellman, who helps lead the unmanned aircraft systems practice group at the law firm McKenna, Long & Aldridge in Washington.

Nets cannot be built over every sensitive location in the United States to keep drones out. So, for now, the best way to control the problem appears to be “geofencing” software that prevents the drones from flying over a specific location.

DJI, the company that manufactured the drone that crashed at the White House, announced in March that its new geofencing software would make its devices inoperable within roughly 16 miles of the White House. The company said it was working to create similar no-fly zones for “sensitive institutions and national borders.”

An organization called No Fly Zone has introduced a website where individuals, business owners and others who do not want drones overhead can enter their addresses into a database. Those addresses will be provided to drone manufacturers who have agreed to program their devices not to fly over those locations.

For several years, officials at the prison here have tried to deter people from throwing objects over its fences by installing dozens of beehives in the woods around it. In front of the hives are signs saying: “Danger! Bees! Keep Out!”

A view from the wooded area outside of the Lee Correctional Institution. Drones were used in attempts to smuggle in contraband. (Photo by Andy McMillan for The New York Times)

But in response to the drone incidents, the authorities in South Carolina have taken several measures that they say will make it harder for drones to fly over their prisons. For example, they said that with the backing of Gov. Nikki R. Haley they had built hulking new towers that enable officers to look outward into the areas around the state’s correction facilities.

“It’s almost like we need an Iron Dome like Israel has to stop it,” Mr. Stirling said, referring to the multibillion-dollar rocket interceptor system that was used to protect Israel during its most recent conflict with Hamas. “But they have a robust defense budget.”

After the drone incident here last April, investigators found a receipt from a convenience store at the campground where the smugglers were hiding. The investigators went to the store and obtained images of the men from surveillance cameras.

Two months later, they arrested one of the men, Brenton Lee Doyle, who is now serving his sentence at another state prison. That arrest led the authorities to a second man, who was arrested last week in Tennessee.

Mr. Stirling said he never expected to have to learn so much about drones when he became the head of the state’s prison system in 2013.

“When I started in this job it was all very futuristic — Amazon wasn’t even talking that much at that point of using them to make deliveries,” he said. “Now it’s something we’re having to devote extensive resources to.”

“We put up higher fences to stop people from throwing things over them,” he said. “Now they’re just flying over them.”

Waggoner, who has served in the Alabama Legislature for 49 years, said he will look at the legislation next year and the year after, but he doesn’t think anything would change his mind on it this year.

Sen. Bobby Singleton’s medical marijuana legislation received a favorable report with a 4-3 vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday afternoon. Only Democrats voted in favor, and the measure likely only passed because three Republican members failing to attend; another abstained from voting.